by Denis Campbell

In a visit this morning with BBC Radio’s Jamie and Louise show we talked Thanksgiving in the USA.  

Getting ready for that show I prepared a series of factoids. As a public service to our UK and EU readers, here is the complete and definitive, as of 8:00 GMT, list of facts about the festival beginning Thursday in the US. We feel it important for you to stuff your mind before your gullet here at Denis’ home of uselss information.

• In the US, it is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November. 
• In Canada, where the harvest generally ends earlier in the year, celebrated on the second Monday in October, also Columbus Day or…
• It is also a day of protest known as Indigenous Peoples Day in the United States.

The First Thanksgiving Proclamation
In the middle of the Civil War, prompted by a series of editorials written by Sarah Josepha Hale, in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day, to be celebrated on the final Thursday in November 1863. Since 1863, Thanksgiving has been observed annually in the United States. (So this is the 146th consecutive official Thanksgiving Day for you sport stat streak fans - Ned Silver at 538.com comes to mind).

• In 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared that Thanksgiving would be the next to last Thursday of November rather than the last. 
• Why? With the country still in the midst of The Great Depression, Roosevelt thought this would give merchants a longer period to sell goods before Christmas. Increasing profits and spending during this period, Roosevelt hoped, would aid bringing the country out of the Depression. At the time, it was considered inappropriate to advertise goods for Christmas until after Thanksgiving. 
• However, Roosevelt’s declaration was not mandatory; twenty-three states went along with this recommendation, and 22 did not. Other states, like Texas, could not decide and took both weeks as government holidays. (George Bush loves holidays)
• The U.S. Congress in 1941 split the difference and established that the Thanksgiving would occur annually on the fourth Thursday of November, which was sometimes the last Thursday and sometimes the next to last.
• On November 26 that year President Roosevelt signed this bill into US law.
• Beginning in 1947, the National Turkey Federation has presented the President of the United States with one live turkey and two dressed turkeys. The live turkey is pardoned and lives out the rest of its days on a peaceful farm.
• Since 1970, a group of Native Americans and others have held a National Day of Mourning protest on Thanksgiving at Plymouth Rock in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

The History of Thanksgiving in North America
Thanksgiving is closely related to harvest festivals that had long been a traditional holiday in much of Europe. 

The first North American celebration of these festivals by Europeans was held in Newfoundland by the Frobisher Expedition in 1578. 

Another event claiming to be the first Thanksgiving occurred on December 4, 1619 when 38 colonists from Berkeley Parish in England disembarked in Virginia and gave thanks to God. 

Prior to this, there was also a thanksgiving feast celebrated on September 8, 1565 in St. Augustine when Pedro Menéndez de Avilés landed. He and his men shared a feast with the natives.

Most people recognize the first Thanksgiving as taking place on an unremembered date, sometime in the autumn of 1621, when the Pilgrims held a three-day feast to celebrate the bountiful harvest they reaped following their first winter in North America.

Thanksgiving Day in the United States, Customs, Facts and Trivia

Thanksgiving Day in Canada

• Canadians trace the holiday to a feast held by Martin Frobisher in Newfoundland in 1578. It is also probable that American loyalists who emigrated to Canada after American independence brought with them many of their Thanksgiving traditions.
• Long ago, before the first Europeans arrived in North America, the farmers in Europe held celebrations at harvest time. To give thanks for their good fortune and the abundance of food, the farm workers filled a curved goat’s horn with fruit and grain. This symbol was called a cornucopia or horn of plenty. When they came to Canada they brought this tradition with them.
• In the year 1578, the English navigator Martin Frobisher held a formal ceremony, in what is now called Newfoundland, to give thanks for surviving the long journey. He was later knighted and had an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean in northern Canada named after him - Frobisher Bay. Other settlers arrived and continued these ceremonies.
• The third came in the year 1621, in what is now the United States, when the Pilgrims celebrated their harvest in the New World. The Pilgrims were English colonists who had founded a permanent European settlement at Plymouth Massachusetts. By the 1750’s, this joyous celebration was brought to Nova Scotia by American settlers from the south. 

A History of Thanksgiving - Like much of history part Fairy Tale

Thanksgiving Dinner

• 50,000,000 turkeys will end up on Thanksgiving Day tables in the USA. Two of which we saw meet their maker on live telly thanks to Sarah Palin…
• The centerpiece of contemporary Thanksgiving in the United States and Canada is a large meal in the late afternoon or evening, starring a large roasted turkey. 
• Many other foods are served alongside the turkey-so many that, because of the amount of food, the Thanksgiving meal is generally served midday or early afternoon to make time for all the eating.
• Preparation may begin at the crack of dawn or days before.
• The meal has something of ritual or traditional quality
• Commonly served dishes include:
• cranberry sauce, 
• gravy, 
• mashed potatoes, 
• candied yams, 
• green beans
• stuffing 
• pumpkin pie, 
• strawberry-rhubarb pie 
• pecan pie.

Turkey Facts

• At one time, both the turkey and the bald eagle were national symbols of America. 
• A turkey under 16 weeks old is called a fryer ; a roaster is usually five to seven months old. 
• Turkeys have great hearing, but no external ears. 
• Age is the most important factor in the taste of a turkey. Old males are preferable to young ones. The opposite is true for female birds. 
• Turkeys are the only breed of poultry native to the western hemisphere. 
• Turkeys in the US are so genetically modified they cannot even stand because Americans prefer to eat white turkey meat (breast) 
• Around about 7 pm folks are hungry again and hot turkey sandwiches with gravy are made after consuming an indecent amount of food all afternoon long 
• The bird is completely carved and you eat turkey for the next three week finally hollering “uncle” at Turkey Tetrazzini and turkey croquets! 
• Ocean Spray is a Massachusetts company that grows cranberries underwater in bogs and produces Cranberry sauce. Several ex-pat friends have been in a tizzy wanting to re-create their local tradition but unable to find the sauce here in the UK 
• There are also regional differences as to the “stuffing” (or “dressing”) traditionally served with the turkey. Southerners generally make theirs from cornbread, while in other parts of the country white bread is the base, to which oysters, apples, chestnuts, sausage or the turkey’s giblets may be added. These eating patterns are very similar in Canada. 
• Foods other than turkey are sometimes served as the main dish for a Thanksgiving dinner. 
• Goose and duck, foods which were traditional European centerpieces of Christmas dinners before being displaced by turkeys, are now ironically sometimes served in place of the Thanksgiving turkey. 
• On the West Coast of the United States, Dungeness crab is common as an alternate main dish, as crab season starts in early November. 
• Turducken, a turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken, is becoming more popular, from its base in Louisiana. 
• Deep fried turkey is rising in popularity as well, requiring special fryers to hold the large bird. 
• In Maryland sauerkraut is eaten. 
• Vegetarians or vegans may try tofurkey, a tofu concoction imitating a turkey. 
• Other dishes reflect the region or cultural background of those who have come together for the meal. 
• For example, Italian-Americans often have lasagna on the table 
• Ashkenazi Jews may serve noodle kugel, a sweet pudding. 

Popular culture

• As the holiday most associated with family gatherings in the U.S., Thanksgiving is often humorously portrayed in movies and television as an occasion for extended family members to bicker with one another. 
• A number of U.S. television programs have featured Thanksgiving Day specials. Friends, a program that aired on Thursday nights, was especially noted for this. 
• In the U.S., the song “Alice’s Restaurant” by Arlo Guthrie is associated with Thanksgiving, as the precipitating events described in the song occurred on Thanksgiving of 1965. “Alice’s Restaurant” is played by many radio stations across the country at least once on that day.

 I grew up in the tiny town of Avon, Massachusetts, about 14-miles west of Plymouth 

Just as Welsh school kids visit the Museum of Welsh Life in St. Fagans, our field trips were to Plymouth Plantation a recreation of the first Pilgrim village, Plymouth Rock and The Mayflower II replica ship 

The Pilgrims carved the year 1620 into Plymouth Rock (more a pebble and now preserved with iron gates and colonic structures above) 

Sadder, Truer History

• As we expanded, the Native American was driven out of most areas 
• In 1970 Native American Activists led by Russell Means seized the ship Mayflower II in protest 
• Whilst there is every indication early settlers lived in harmony, treatment of indigenous Native Americans (seizing of lands, placement on reservations and general exploitation) is a dark stain that continues in the USA (I am 1/16 Arawack Indian FYI.) 
• Russell Means and the Lakota nation seceded from all US treaties one year ago next month 
• The Sioux tribal election was again rigged and stolen in November 
• Indian Gaming is a blight on the native community 
• Bureau of Indian Affairs (part of the Interior Department) is riddled with corruption 
• My pre-election interview with Russell

The Traditional start of the Christmas Shopping Season

Entertainment, sports, food and drink tidbits

• It’s a day of wall-to-wall NFL American football 
• The Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys have played on Thanksgiving Day since I was a kid, if you would like some punting advice: 
• Green Bay should edge the Detroit Lions, while Indianapolis will ride roughshod over Atlanta, and Dallas will rope in the New York Jets on Thanksgiving Day. 
• Games begin at noon eastern and end around midnight it is a day of complete excess, a veritable orgy of drink, sport and food. 
• I was in the Miami’s Orange Bowl on a bitterly cold and rainy the Friday after Thanksgiving 1984, a very historic moment in US College football, when diminutive Boston College QB Doug Flutie threw a 65 yard “Hail Mary” pass with no time remaining on the clock for the winning touchdown. It is the highlight film shown on every football show… 
• Each year American families gather together to bicker and fight amongst themselves. 
• Wednesday and Sunday are the two busiest air and road travel days of the year 
• Everyone celebrates Thanksgiving, not everyone celebrates Christmas. 
• Which is why in 10-years Thursday is just another Thursday to me! 

There is an episode of The West Wing where White House press secretary CJ Craig is upset that because one turkey is not good enough looking, it will get eaten whilst the other receives a Presidential Pardon and is allowed to live. So she tricks President Bartlett into pardoning a second turkey. There is a wonderful line at the end of that episode where Bartlett puts it all in perspective by saying: “and now I get to declare a national day of Thanksgiving. This is a great job Josh.” 

Everyday is a day of Thanksgiving for me. I hope so for you as well!